Despite himself, Blair has made Britain a better place

Hypocrisy is even less attractive to the public than deceit, though war is more terrible than political corruption

'He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won't even play that last encore." So read a memorandum prepared by Tony Blair's aides last summer. It recommended that he make a grand tour of Britain's cities with appearances on Songs of Praise, Blue Peter and Chris Evans's radio show.

I have such high regard for the prime minister's political skills that I have been waiting for all that to come true. This Houdini has repeatedly shed the chains of cabinet chaos, shrugged off the straitjacket of administrative disasters and escaped undrowned from tanks of scandal. For example, in the summer of 2005, following an election that had given him little more than 35% support, he reemerged as a national hero. In the space of a few hours he flew to Singapore to snatch the Olympics for London, choreographed the G8 summit at Gleneagles